Final critical analysis question

Having done research and written the introduction on sustainability, brand ethics and social issues, I feel that the question would be more focused on sustainability rather than social issues as having both topics together didn't really make sense and was irrelevant to each other. The question doesn't allow me to look deeper into a particular topic as there's a lot to research about both issues. The issue I want to focus on is gender identity.

The question that I came up with instead is 'How do skincare brands design packaging that reflects ethical concerns within gender identity?'. This question is precise and allows me to look into the ethical concerns that skincare brands have regarding gender identity. It would make it easier to focus on the changing ethics regarding gender identity and the LGBTQ+ community and the impact on skincare brands as they are known to be heavily gendered.

Introduction for the Critical writing piece

Skincare packaging is one of the many types of products to be designed, packaged and sold to the consumer whether online or instore. As times change and the world moves on to the next thing, people in society become more aware of issues at present. Ethical responsibility and social issues in skincare packaging are two of many concerns the public are expecting brands to address as the changing market brings up topics concerning current social issues, and how it makes an impact on how products are designed to satisfy and accommodate to the impending market. Our thriving society has allowed others to feel free in their own bodies and thus has recognised that there are more than two genders and that we must be attentive towards everyone. Amongst gender-neutral packaging in skincare products, consumers are also expecting more responsibility in equality from skincare companies in environmental issues; now more than ever.  Brands have to prove to their consumer that they are sensitive to changing society, the environment, and how they package their products in order to fulfill their approval to potential customers. Skincare brands are also slowly becoming more mindful of the demand for better ethical responsibility in their products and packaging which has influenced their design decisions, and within society, there are growing ethical concerns in the skincare industry where consumers are questioning companies and their practice.  Brands and their social and ethical concerns are a direct result of how people view themselves and their self-worth, making them more conscious of the way they look. Consequently, consumers only accept the best from their skincare products and are expected to be treated fairly. Skincare brands have more of an added duty in the current market for the way they deliver their products to the consumer. Individuals deem a skincare brand’s worthiness by assessing the ingredients they use, their honestly to the consumer, production values and the material and wastage; all these factors equate to how the brand influences their design decisions, and whether they are addressing societal issues such as creating skincare products and packaging that is gender-neural and sensitive to the prevailing market. The younger generation have learnt to become more equal and recognise that there are more than two genders, and that we should grow to make others feel accepted by actively guiding the gender-neutral packaging to be part of the mass market. Ethical and social responsibility directly impact one another as they both share similar issues that arise in product packaging and the advertisement and marketing of the products. People that believe in socially responsibility are also ethically sound as they believe that as well as people being treated with equal rights, they understand that avoidable use of excess materials can be an undeniable threat to the environment, thus us in it. Introducing sustainability, recycling schemes and non-gendered skincare products, it can help prevent environmental issues and allows brands to cut down costs on their packaging, whilst also promoting gender-fluid packaging and help them enter the new, inevitable, ever-changing market. 

Research on Ethics and Social issues

Ethical concerns – sustainability, ingredients, production values, honesty to consumer

Social issues – gender neutral

Link the two issues – gender and sustainability. Younger market cares about environment and is more likely to respond to gender neutral packaging. In making packaging more environmentally friendly, it often becomes less gendered which in turn appeals to a market who crave neutral products.

Through making their products sustainable and ethically sound, the packaging has become more neutral and less concerned with gender. This is relevant is today’s market where people are becoming less concerned with binary gender.

Using gender neutral packaging is being sensitive to the current market.

Research sources

Online sources – current social issues, articles

Books – research into ethical issues and sustainability 

Primary research – visiting shops, emailing brands which use gender neutral or sustainable packaging 

Case studies – Lush and the Ordinary. Why do they have gender-neutrally designed products? 

Books

Designing Sustainable Packaging by Scott Boylston

While packaging is one part of a much larger marketing mix which includes advertising, e-commerce and direct marketing, once a consumer has arrived at a retail site, and more immediate relationship between package, product and consumer predominates. A package on the shelf is much like an actor on stage-the potential connection between this’ stage player’ and the audience will only occur if the stage player lives up to all the promised hype. This analogy is however, somewhat simplistic, because it neglects to consider that while real actors work in concert with each other, packages must compete with other ‘actors’ right next to them, and each of these actors possess as much motivation to connect with the audience as they do. p.g. 22

A package is a functional tool that fulfils the various requirements of commerce. package designers must take into account the entire life-cycle of the package they are proposing, from its place within the brand hierarchy to the practicalities of transportation, containment, storage, display, and-use and disposal. p.g. 26

Designers with the ambition to ’make their mark’ should consider what design should and could be in the larger context of culture, rather than what new typographic distortion they can make up for the sake of it own visual novelty’. p.g. 35

Designers must not become so enamoured with the idea of a package performing as a product that they lose sight of the fact that more material is being used that in the original packaging. p.g. 52

Advertising as communication by Gillian Dyer

Gender is routinely portrayed according to traditional cultural stereotypes: women are shown as very feminine... and men in situations of authority and dominance over women. Femininity and masculinity are prototypes of an essential expression p.g. 98

Gender, Race, and Class in Media: A Text-Reader By Gail Dines, Jean M. Humez

“Male” products were produced in black and white whereas those promoting “female” products feature full-colour, pastel shades and soft tones. P.g. 269

The differences between advertisements for male toiletries and those female searches are marked and, to a certain degree, conform to certain binary oppositions which are generally accepted to relate to men and women. In this particular case it needs to be acknowledged that in our society are far less accustomed than women to purchasing sing a wide range of toiletries. P.G.269

“Male” products, which are aimed not only at men but also actually buying for now, therefore needed to take account of this when promoting “masculine” products that, in some or many ways, be regarded as “feminine”. p.g. 269

An important factor in the different presentations of products for men and women is,,. a distinction by which gender stereotypes are reinforced. Cosmetic advertisements frequently use colour as an “objective correlation,” that is, the colour of a product and its surroundings are used to link and enhance the quality and style of that product. Not surprisingly, therefore, colour played an important role in the gender differentiation. p.g. 269

Slot as beautiful and landing at the beauty and femininity they promised the beholder/purchaser. p.g. 269

Gender Advertisements by Erving Goffman Introduced by Vivian Gornick

What the human nature of males and females really consists of, then, is a capacity to learn to provide and to read depictions of masculinity and femininity and a willingness to adhere to a schedule for presenting these pictures, and this capacity they have by virtue of being persons, not females or males. One might as well just say there is no gender identity. P.g. 8

Given our stereotypes of femininity, a particular woman will find that the way has been cleared to fall back on the situation of her entire sex to account to herself for why she should refrain from vying with men in mechanical, financial, political, and so forth. P.g. 8

Ethics in Social Marketing by Alan R. Andreasen

Unethical-or even ethically questionable-behaviour can reflect negatively on such institutions. p.g. 160

Market research aimed at a target segment should investigate how ethical practice is packaged (product), how it is delivered (please), why, where, and how social matters would participate in ethical practice (price and place), and how the change agent can promote routine ethical assessment and consideration (promotion). P.g. 170

Otherwise, marketers are (at the least) accomplices if, for example, they undertake projects that waste are misused public funds or private funds to solve social problems. They cannot simply identify projects from which they would profit and seek to undertake these without engaging in thoughtful consideration of the consequences. p.g. 54

Third, the above general ends extend to all people equally and in a similar manner must good reason can be given to show that they must be restricted in their extension to the particular class of people (e.g.,women; children; people of certain race, ethnic group, or religion), or significantly modified (in a morally relevant fashion clothes, in their realization by that group of people. p.g. 54

Such modifications or restrictions may be justifiably imposed only if they can be shown to promote those general ends. This is different from saying that they promote the general welfare. Instead, restrictions on how it worth the expense to certain persons must search promote equality; restrictions on how justice is administered to various people must serve promote justice. p.g. 54

Within the preceding quotation, the traditions, history, and customs of the society played an important and justifiable. In particular, social marketers must be able to show that no other specific and end compatible with the general and would accomplish or fulfil the same end (and its priority) and do so with greater compatibility with the target group’s although moral views, customs, traditions and history. p.g. 54

Giving voice to those affected, not simply with regard to the means, but also regarding general ends is surely a matter of treating those people with respect. If targeted individuals are permitted no say, and little awareness, regarding the general ends towards which they are being directed, they are treated more like incompetent individuals than adults. p.g. 56

We may feel compelled to promote certain other general ends, such as the importance of diversity. Still, diversity can be overdone; it can rupture social bonds. Societies need bonds that create unity within a society. And a society may take limited, but positive steps to ensure that that takes place. 56

Social marketing involves creating or identifying a product that those addressed will seek or adopt, a place where those individuals can get that product, price they can afford, and the promotion of that product. Social marketing is an integrated effort to bring about desired behavioural change. p.g. 57